Soul MatesBooks

Do Sex and Love Mix?

By Allie Ochs

In a recent Today Show, Donny Deutsch
surveyed women on affairs of the heart. There was something important to learn
about women and sex:

Sex doesn't happen just like that

Foreplay starts way before you hit the bedroom

Emotional cheating is no different than physical cheating

For
the majority of women having sex is not equal to making love. The prevailing
attitude in our society is: let there be sex at the end of the tunnel, I
don't care about the light! Yet, for most women, there is a profound
difference between just having sex and making love. Sex is about you, making
love is about both of you. When you just have sex, your partner becomes the
means to an end; this is enough to make any woman feel lousy! Women are
bombarded with sex advice on how to do it right and looking good while they do
it. Much of this advice is missing an important point: emotional intimacy. The
good news: most women are natural experts at sex. The bad news: too often
women's sex lives leave much to be desired on an emotional level.

Sex doesn't happen just like that

Anne loves her husband George, but she
has become rather disinterested in sex with him. If she loves me, why
doesn't she want to have sex?, George wonders. Most evenings when
George comes home, he is stressed, irritated and critical of the kids and Anne.
As one woman put it on the Today Show: It's like after you
kicked your dog. Do you think the dog wants to come back to be petted?
Anne, who has taken George's brunt all evening, is emotionally unable to
make love. She is not willing to just have sex for the sake of peace. The
message: like so many of us, George and Anne need to connect emotionally again.
Without emotional intimacy it will be very quiet in the bedroom. The longer
couples ignore this issue, the wider the emotional gap will become. For those
unable to bridge this gap, professional advice is in order.

Foreplay starts way before you hit the bedroom

The women on the Today's show weren't precise as to how soon before hitting the bedroom foreplay should
begin. The point was still taken:
most couples, who don't experience emotional intimacy, have unsatisfying
sex lives. Emotional intimacy is like a 7/24 foreplay. When we feel really
close to each other, the mental foreplay never stops. Your mind is intimately
connected all the time. Many couples have lost that connection and often end up
living like roommates. The message: make your partner and your relationship a
priority. Make an effort to be close. This is one secret of many happy couples.
Have the courage to be really close. Let each other in all the way, not just to
the front door.

Emotional cheating is no different than physical cheating

Is
fantasizing about another person normal or harmful to your partner? Whatever
your viewpoint may be 70% of women believe that emotional infidelity is the
same as physical cheating. The same women also believe that emotional cheating
leads to physical cheating. This is a big issue! One woman on the Today Show
said: I am not getting from my husband what he is giving to someone
else. What exactly is emotional cheating? It is having sexual or
romantic fantasies about someone other than your partner or relating intimately
to someone the way you should relate to your partner. It could also be telling
someone what you should be telling your partner.

Pierre, a regular at
the local strip joint, enjoys flirting with other women and never misses a
Playboy issue. He couldn't understand why his girlfriend Kate was so
offended. After all he didn't have sex with anyone else. Kate eventually
left. She could no longer be with someone who is half-heartily involved. When
your mind or heart strays you are committing emotional infidelity. You are
taking your emotional and sexual energy away from your partner to someone else.
The message: you must focus on your relationship, not elsewhere.

As Mary
O'Hara said: Love cannot survive if you give it scraps of yourself, scraps of your time and scraps of your thoughts.

Note from the author: this is an article you should put right in the face of your husband or boyfriend.

Allie Ochs
is a speaker, relationship coach and author of: Are You Fit to Love? Her book has received the honorable mention at the USA 2004 Best Book Awards. She has appeared on TV, Radio and is
published in numerous magazines and newsletters.